ABSTRACT

Many educational initiatives and practices have been developed to help children learn to deal with ethnic diversity, and there have been various studies to examine the outcomes of this diversity education. Still, we have very little systematic understanding of what individual teachers communicate and teach about ethnic diversity, and how this affects students’ interethnic relations. In this chapter the authors provide a systematic discussion of available and future quantitative research on teachers’ contributions to diversity education. They focus on teachers in upper elementary school and secondary school, and address (1) the nature and measurement of their diversity teachings, (2) the effects of their teachings on the ethnic attitudes and relations of their (pre)adolescent students, and (3) the additional importance of teacher, school, and classroom factors such as teachers’ ethnic preferences and school and classroom composition. They conclude with directions for future research.